Page 28 of Maid of Dishonor

“Hey,” I say when he answers the door. I lean past him, sticking my head into his apartment and inhaling deeply. “You ready?” Another inhale.

“You’re creepy, you know that?” he says, but he looks amused.

“It always smells so good,” I say, taking one last whiff and then shoving a big freezer bag of cookies at him. “Oatmeal raisin,” I say.

“Ooh, thanks,” he says, quickly opening the bag and grabbing one. He shoves the entire thing in his mouth at once before going back inside and reemerging a second later, sans cookies. I take one more sniff of his apartment before allowing him to close and lock his door.

“It just smells like me,” he says, the words mumbly because of all the cookie-chewing going on.

“Yeah, and you smell good.” I notice he’s walking more slowly than usual, and I give him a little poke in the back. “Come on. Walking slowly isn’t going to get you out of this. It’s going to be fun!”

He stops in the middle of the stairs and looks over his shoulder at me, raising an eyebrow. “You’re honestly looking forward to this.” It’s not a question; he just seems surprised.

“Yes!” In fact, my excitement is about to bubble over intogiddyterritory, but I don’t give him any details. I don’t want to scare him away.

“Why?”

“You’ll see,” I say, poking him in the back once again to get him moving.

“But Maya’s not actually getting married, Sam,” he says, resuming his glacially slow pace once more. Honestly, I’ve never seen someone walk down the stairsthisslowly.

“Okay, first of all, she might. I mean, I know you—we—are going to do everything we can to help her see the light. But some people don’t want to see the light, Carter. So with or without your approval, she might get married. And second of all, I promised her I would go look at venues. Ipromised. And—” I shrug, feeling suddenly vulnerable. “I don’t know. I like wedding stuff, you know? You might be surprised, but I’m a romantic at heart.”

We’ve reached the bottom of the stairs—finally—and are now heading to my car. Carter looks over at me as we walk, and he smiles. “What part of that is supposed to surprise me? I know you’re a romantic. I know all about it. I know, for example, that you want a wedding dress that sort of hugs you or whatever until the very bottom.”

“…Mermaid style,” I say slowly, unlocking the door and sliding in behind the wheel. How did he know that?

He continues speaking once we’ve both gotten in the car. “And that you want sunflowers as a bouquet. And you want your dress to be one of those that goes up around your neck, sort of—”

“Halter,” I say dazedly. How does he know all this? I mean, I’ve mentioned it, sure, but I never thought he was actually storing that information away.

He nods. “Yeah, that. See? I know about all that stuff.”

But something in the way he speaks has me feeling suddenly defensive.

“But?” I say, because I can tell he’s leaving something out.

He shrugs, hesitating before he speaks. “I mean, it’s not my thing. Getting married or whatever. But it suits you.”

Oh, look! Knife, meet heart. Twist around in there; make a bloody mess of all those feelings.

His words aren’t a surprise; not really. He’s never been big on commitment, preferring to play the field, and though we’ve never talked about it, I’d bet all my plant babies that it comes from losing his mom and how that affected him and his dad. But not being big on commitment and blatantly stating that you don’t want to get married are two different things.

“Not ever?” I hear myself say, and although I wish I could take the question back—because I know the answer will just hurt—I can’t. I look over at him briefly. “I mean, what if you meet someone and fall in love?”

He shrugs, and when he answers, he doesn’t meet my eye. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m not crazy about the idea of falling in love.”

I give a sarcastic snort of laughter, turning my eyes back to the road. “Yeah, because you always have control over that.”

He just shrugs again. “I think I’ve got decent control.” He hesitates, and then he straightens up in my peripheral vision. “No,” he says, more resolutely now. “I have good control. I’m not going to fall in love or any of that. It’s just not going to happen.”

I nod, dropping the subject, but inside I feel sick. To avoid any more conversation, I turn the radio on, not even paying attention to the music that starts playing. I don’t care; I’m not listening. Just taking deep breaths and willing my eyes to stay dry.

In the end, the radio turns out to be my ally. It’s only when I hyperfocus on the song that I’m able to put aside Carter’s painful words, and so I embrace the music, not turning it off even as we pull into the parking lot and then park, getting out of the car.

By this time I’m in a better frame of mind. I’m not going to let this ruin what I wanted to be an enjoyable experience. I can be sad later, if I have to. But right now I’m just going to enjoy myself.

“All right,” I say, turning to Carter as we walk up the path to enter the large, brick building. It’s got Roman pillars out front and elegant gardens out front, which throws me off a little, considering I know what’s supposedly inside.

---